But it has been a common complaint about President Trump for the last two years.

Now, to be fair, some of the chaos since the 2016 election is manufactured by the pearl-clutching from a perpetually outraged media.

When the news is running breathless reports about Trump getting two scoops of ice cream and acting like it’s earth-shattering, you know they’re the ones stirring things up in order to make everything look out of control.

But is chaos really a bad thing?

I don’t think it is.

In fact, I think throwing the Establishment here and abroad into turmoil just might be President Trump’s plan.

When the United States became a world power, its administrations emphasized stability over everything. Trump welcomes chaos because it’s a much more effective negotiating strategy. Entities that seek order can be intimidated with chaos. But politicians who seek chaos can’t be intimidated.

This notion that chaos equals bad is understandable coming from the Washington Establishment where the status quo must be protected at all costs – even when the status quo runs counter to America’s national interests.

Donald Trump is a disrupter.

In fact, I think that’s largely why he won in 2016.

From the day he rode down that escalator, he made it clear that he was running for President in order to strip things down to the studs and rebuild our domestic and foreign policy into something that puts America first.

Now anyone who has done any renovating on their home knows life becomes chaotic while the renovations are taking place. And when the renovations are complete, all that chaos was worth it.

The people who feel most disrupted here are the ones who are happy with the status quo.

Whether it’s NATO, or endless wars, or an undefended southern border, the Defenders of the Status Quo would rather keep things as they are than endure the temporary chaos that comes with change.

Trump’s actions in Syria encompass his preference for flexibility, quick strikes or withdrawals with no long term commitment. And that’s exactly what frustrates a national security establishment whose watershed moment was still the post-war reconstruction of Germany and Japan. They foolishly misread Trump by confusing commitment with consistency, and unpredictability with inconsistency.

Our foreign policy, crafted by unimaginative diplomats, who despite their pretentions have nothing in common with the flashing wit of a Talleyrand or the cunning calculation of a Metternich, is based on creating trust by being utterly predictable. They’ve succeeded brilliantly at being utterly predictable. And they’ve failed at using this predictability as leverage to build a trustworthy international order.

Trump has brilliantly wielded his unpredictability to make America into a mobile piece on the world chessboard. America has the ability to rapidly deploy troops around the world and pull them out. But we were too bogged down in a swamp of our own ideological abstractions to make use of our capabilities.

Establishment thinking deploys American troops in the 21stcentury like British soldiers in the 19th. The deployments never end. Instead we set up little colonies of contractors, mercenaries, reporters, aid workers, and try to bring civilization to the savages at the cost of endless blood and treasure.

These outposts of a phantom imperial order of the new age of humanity become besieged fortresses, islands in a sea of savagery which we are obligated to defend, and they attract our enemies who immediately begin funneling money and weapons, turning the guerrillas we were fighting into an even bigger threat. These humanitarian empires end up being neither imperial nor humanitarian.

Greenfield is exactly right when he writes, “But we were too bogged down in a swamp of our own ideological abstractions to make use of our capabilities.”

When you see unpredictability or any change in the status quo as chaotic, even staying stuck in a rut in a no-win situation is preferable.

We’ve been in Afghanistan for seventeen years.

And we are still no closer to this “nation-building” fantasy of the Washington Establishment.

But because leaving Afghanistan would be deemed chaotic, they balk at the idea of leaving while clinging to this fantasy that we can turn Afghanistan into another free and democratic mini-America.

As Greenfield puts it:

The establishment assails Trump as “inconsistent”. It values consistency above all else because it has no strategies, only ideological commitments to abstract ideas that don’t survive places like Afghanistan.

The abstract ideas on which our nation-building is based are not strategies. They’re values. And too many administrations, Democrat and Republican, have built wishful thinking strategies around values. Ideas and values are expressions of belief. Strategies are flexible plans based on real opportunities.

The Trump Doctrine is consistent in the abstract. It’s flexible in its implementation. That’s what it takes to actually win against terrorists, guerrillas and cunning enemies that seize opportunities instead of upholding ideas. And the establishment’s failure to understand that is why we’ve spent decades losing.

We elected Donald Trump in part because he is a disrupter. And the fact is, he made that clear from the very beginning.

The status quo that has enriched Washington and its wealthy donor class hasn’t worked out very well for the American people.

Donald Trump ran to change that.

And the establishment’s response to that change is to dig in like a tick.

They won’t fight tooth and nail for the American people. But, trust me, they will put up one hell of a fight to keep things in Washington exactly as they’ve always been.

And what they call “chaotic” is actually President Trump’s America First policy which is stripping them of their power, their influence, their lucrative sources of income, and their control over both domestic and foreign policy.

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